I remember the good ol' days when we'd ruthlessly cut down our enemies with real words. We'd tell him his mother gives sloppy blowjobs to Vietnamese pirates, etc. You had to think a little bit and put forth some effort. It was a duel with words and wit. Now its just whoever can spam umad?!??! first. Fuck the future.

aside from the sniper rifle not doing shit for damage unless scoped in. You could 360 scope kill though. Itd still be impressive as long as you didnt break movement to aim at them and just hit while spinning.

Its all good, really large cons like PAX, Comic Con, etc, are always really expensive endeavors, I wish more of them would move to better more amicable hubs, since Chicago is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the country and really cheap to fly into.

That or Atlanta...both PAX cons are a bit cost prohibitive. A handful of us go to DragonCon though.

Living in Washington, it's kind of easy to go to anything on the west coast. Going to PAX Prime will only cost me $70-$100. (not including some more costs to finish up my costume)
DragonCon looks like fun but it's going to be at about the same dates as PAX so, I wouldn't be able to go.

The barrel is made of .75 in. diameter PVC, and the scope is 2 in. diameter PVC with 2 in. couplings on either end. The scope is actually held up by two 1/4x5 in. bolts, the wood is just there to look good. The scope cap is foam-board cut to a 2 in. diameter. The flat parts between the barrel and the scope is just painted wood. The wire was an old USB wire of mine. The laser was also made from PVC. The stock I actually got from Army Navy Surplus, it was an old M1 Carbine stock, I cut off the front end to make it look like the Sniper's stock.

I attached the scope by drilling holes in the scope and barrel for the bolts to fit through, then put the bolts in and screwed nuts onto every surface as tightly as possible. The barrel was then screwed into the front of the stock, and glued in with Gorilla Glue. Then I attached the wooden pieces so they fit snugly, and Gorilla Glued them there. The trigger guard was a pipe fastener that I screwed into the stock. After everything was glued, I masked off the stock with plastic and masking tape to make sure it would get no paint on it (we are now at the "Before Painting" picture).

Then, I took it outside and spray-painted it black, and let it dry. The next day, I mixed some green vinyl paint to the color of the scope, and some metallic paint to the color of the barrel. I used a paintbrush and dabbed at the scope instead of painting it in swipes to create a uniform texture (we are now at the "After Painting" picture).

I let it dry for a few hours. Then I drilled a hole into the scope and super-glued the laser wire into it, and masked it down with gaffers tape.

I found a leather vest at a thrift store, i was going to find a leather jacket and chop off the arms, but luckily I found a good vest.

I went to Jo Ann fabrics and got some suede type fabric, some light fake leather trim, and some fabric glue. Then it was just a matter of cutting and pasting the fabric to make the upper part of the jacket, and pasting trim on the edges.

Not to shit on your head, I think you did a great job, but the scope should be a little bigger, I would suggest 3 in. PVC in the future if you were to make another. I made one myself for my GF, see here.

However your stock was brilliant, I shaped mine out of 2x4 using a Dremel and sander, kind of a bitch to do, but the stock in game is actually a brown but it still looks good how you did it.

I guess it's a silly question but I'm curious about how you go about transporting weapons, albeit fake, prop ones around the country without some kind of comment by law enforcement. Do they get broken up for flying and what about walking around outside the convention hall?

Maybe this isn't so much of an issue for TF2 characters but I've seen some costumes like Solid Snake, etc which have much more realistic guns.

You know you can fly with a real firearm right? You just have to check it and let them know it's a firearm. They will inspect that it's packed according to their rules and then toss it on the conveyer belt like the other luggage.

C2E2 has a ban on realistic weapons. Guns have to be obviously fake, swords/hammers/etc have to be incapable of causing harm to anyone which mostly limits you to foam or cardboard of some kind. If you are to buy a sword at the show, it's got to be unsharpened and remained in a sealed container.

Oh yeah, I saw you guys there, and took your picture on Saturday. I was the huge guy with the red hot chili peppers shirt and the soldier I.D. badge, lol. If you had seen me on Friday or Sunday, you would have seen me in my Valve soldier Tee

Alright, I'm the scout in the picture. First off, InternationalFuck, I would totally steal your intelligence. and second, no one gave me props on those awesome handwraps. :I and like my pal Injust Potatoe said, I had no clue what I was going to do, I threw that together in fifteen minutes. PRETTY damn good if I do say so myself. You would have forgivin the small details if ya heard my boston accent I was pulling X3